5 Reasons you should be blogging for your small business
I’ve got to confess, for years I resisted blogging for years. I’d had a website almost 10 years before I caved and started my blogging journey and to be honest, I did it pretty badly until I got my head around the whole thing.
The majority of my blogging to date has been for my Millinery and Bridal Accessories business, writing on websites is a newer venture, as is the business. That means however I have the knowledge and practical experience to write this post from a user’s perspective as a small creative business, not just as a jargon-savvy website specialist.
I told myself I hated writing, I wasn’t a good writer, nobody would be interested in anything I had to say, I was too busy for stuff like that, I couldn’t be bothered, etc…..
Lots of “I”’s there. I’d simply failed to understand what blogging was and how it would serve my business, what a fool I’d been, once the penny dropped it suddenly clicked and I realised how much opportunity had slipped me by but it’s never too late to get started.
Since I trained myself to see blogging for business as a game rather than an indulgence, I’ve never looked back.
Ultimately we are all in business to make money, whatever our motivations, ambitions, etc. Blogging is a great way to support that end goal.
1 Blogging to drive traffic to your website
Your website is the hub of your online business (or should be – I wrote a post clarifying why) and as such you want as many people to visit it as possible. A blog used properly is a key tool to achieving this desired outcome.
A blog post is just the start… Each blog post is the starting point of an ecosystem of related content that should all track back to it. Just think for each blog post you create, the following marketing collateral can be created, 2 or 3 feeder posts for Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter. Pinterest posts that link back are great for increasing reach. Perhaps you could repurpose it for a podcast or Youtube. Don’t forget to send details to your email list. That’s a whole lot of content you can derive from one post!
It’s not just about driving traffic from those who already follow you through. It’s about capturing the attention of those who don’t even know you exist but showing up the results when they are going to Google for answers and solutions.
2 Blogging to establish authority & expertise
With each blog post, you create you are brick by brick building your business reference library. A permanent repository of informative and helpful information and resources, each of which further establishes your credibility as a go-to expert in your field. From personal experience of blogging for my millinery and bridal accessories business, my advice posts often led to me being asked to contribute to magazine features and style advice columns, great exposure for me and my brand!
I like to think of each blog as a book added to a shelf in a reference library that is indexed and can be found forever, whereas a social media post is more like a flyer in a leaflet stand at the entrance to the library. It will probably get picked up but those both interested and not, are glanced at and discarded from memory whereas a blog post will always be there to answer their questions when they go looking for answers.
Don’t get me wrong, both are necessary but have different levels of impact and legacy.
3 Blogging to build relationships with your niche
Whilst it’s great that you’re sharing knowledge and information in your blog posts there should also be something deeper going on if you’re getting it right. I’m not pretending this is something that comes instantly though I would argue the less you overthink it, the quicker you’ll get it right. What am I blethering about? Human connection is an all-important factor in building that critical know-like and trust factor with your niche.
Blogging is the perfect opportunity to share not just information but the character and personality of you and or your business. This might well mean that you repel some people and that’s totally fine. If they don’t like your approach they were never going to be your perfect clients anyway, but on the flip side, those who are your “people” will feel instantly comfortable and connected. They’ll feel safe, understood and loyalty builds quickly.
Harking back to my millinery bridal blog I have a particular post in mind that proves this point perfectly, it was written about hair accessories for the older bride. This post alone is responsible for around 30% of my clients and when they email or ring me the first thing they say is that they’ve read my blog post and they knew instantly that they’d found the right person to go to, who would understand their needs, they felt relieved, and that they couldn’t wait to order. The power of a well-planned blog post! The decision to purchase is made before they’ve even decided which piece to order.
4 Blogging to increase website SEO
Don’t get frightened by this, it’s often built up to be a much darker art than it needs to be. Granted there are advanced levels that require more skill but at the entry level, for most small businesses it’s as basic as answering the questions your potential clients are asking. The more questions you are answering the more chance you have of the right clients finding you. A blog is a perfect place to build this framework.
With a small amount of research, recall of the conversations you have repeatedly with new clients, and imagination – putting yourself in their shoes and you’ll quickly come up with a whole raft of titles that reflect the questions that people are typing into Google. If you’re using the same words you’ll come up in the results because you are providing answers to the commonly performed searches.
5 Blogging for long-term growth & it’s free
Ok, full disclosure…. A new blog post is unlikely to see you hit page one of Google overnight it’s a slightly longer-term game but each post is getting you nearer. My post about hair accessories for the older bride probably took about a month to get to page one but it’s now been the top result on Google for 3 years now, not bad for an hour of my time and no financial investment in ads, boosting, sponsoring, etc!
Blog with strategy and you WILL see results.